Hi everyone. OcUK sent me my new Silverstone Raven RV03 case a few days ago, and it's now been up and running for a couple of days (and lots of changes!) so thought I'd post my first impressions to help anyone looking at buying the case. I am upgrading from an Antec 900 I've been running for 4 years or so.

Popped all my hardware from the old PC inside it a couple of days ago, still tinkering so it's not finished yet but so far absolutely love it! Bear in mind the only cases I've ever used are mostly Antec's - 900 (gaming rig), Fusion (HTPC) and 300's (work PCs) - as well as lots of old Dell's, HP's and a couple of no-brand £20 cases, so I am not comparing to any other modern cases out there. Also, apologies for picture quality - camera phone and I couldn't be bothered getting it out from under the desk until it's done!

First impression when installing in the case was confusion. Because of the way the case is laid out it's very different to every other case I've worked on and I found myself actually following the instructions to make sure I put components in in the right order!

PSU - The internal PSU cable wouldn't reach as my XFX Core PSU had the power connector upside down to the way the cable expected. Fortunately, I had looked over the build log on [H]ardOCP so I knew by removing a cable tie behind the front panel it would free up more cable. That worked and the PSU was in.

Motherboard - Motherboard went in next and that was fine. Same as any other case, just rotated.

Graphics cards - again nice and simple. Vertical but other than that, normal.

HDDs - Hard drives went in next and I elected to put all 4 of mine in the back (2 x WD 500's and 2 x 128GB SSD's). There are five enclosures on the backand one is designed for two SSDs. The instructions recommends to top and tail them where I thought it would be neater if they were the same way round, but when I came to plug power cables into them it made sense - same way round would only have left a centimetre or so clearance between the two power connectors and would have caused problems for my cables. I put one mechanical drive in each of the upper enclosures, but later had to move the one from the top, front to the lower back one as my (normal length) SATA cables wouldn't reach it and leave room for tucking it away. If you are planning on using all the HDDs space behind the motherboard, my advice is buy some longer SATA cables.

Optical drives - this was an issue for me. The case comes designed for one optical drive and I wanted to use two. This required removing the next 3 front bays, removing the fan mountings on the front and back of, then putting two of the bays back in. Not a huge job - couple of minutes. The only problem I had was the case didn't look right with the optical drives in and the bezels removed:

Silverstone do include sticky pads so you can attach part of the bezel back onto your optical drives but the pack that comes with the case only had one set of them. In the end, I decided to go down to one optical drive because I don't really NEED two and the case looks so much better with the front bezel on:

Cabling - this was a dream compared to the Antec 900 everything came out of! Because the PSU cables start behind the motherboard there's nothing to hide initially. There is also a hole next to every component you need to plug in - simply route the appropriate cable to the hole and it pops out exactly where it needs to be. This is also the only case I've ever worked on where the front panel connectors (audio, power button, etc) are already pre-wired around the case and come out exactly where they're needed. Plug them in, pull the excess through at the back and it looks brilliant:

After the struggle with the 5870 power connectors in the Antec 900 once hard drives are in, the Silverstone is simply a joy:

I was also concerned about the amount of stuff I have plugged into the PC and whether it would all fit under the top cover (especially the monitor connections - DVI, HDMI and DP-DVI adapter). Shouldn't have worried!
Top off:

Top on:
(sorry about the messy under-desk cables reflected in the window!)

Overall, really couldn't be happier with it. After the squeeze fitting everything inside the Antec, and the resulting cable nightmare, this really is a joy to work with.

Performance & noise - my CPU temperatures have remained fairly stable between the Antec 900 and the Raven, and my GPU temperatures have dropped by approx. 3-5 C under load, which I'm very happy with considering I simply didn't want to downgrade from the 900's excellent cooling, just have an easier to use and more interest case. The fans on low are slightly louder than the 900's at low, but less than the 900's at medium. High on the Silverstone is probably going between the 900's medium and high settings (cetainly a lot quieter than the 900's high!). The case is certainly not intrusive at any point and as soon as one of the GPU's fans start whirring up, it's soon lost.

Issues - I have got a couple of niggles with the case. The included fan controller switches are great and easily reachable, and while the front fan happily switches from low to high, the rear one switches from low to off! I've checked connections and the fan/controller seems to be broken when set to high. I've emailed Silverstone to see if it's possible to RMA just the fan as there's no way I'm RMA-ing the whole case for this! If they say no, I'll just buy a new fan and swap it over myself. The other niggle is that Silverstone only include the correct sized sticky pads to put the bezel on one drive. I would have preferred two, so in my mail to Silverstone I've asked if it's possible to buy these (or the whole accessory pack) separately.

Overall, I really, really love this case and would recommend it to anyone thinking about getting one. Next step is some white lights to show off the inside through the window, then when I'm happy with the cabling strap it all down behind the motherboard - I'll put up some proper pictures when I'm happy with it!

In the meantime, if anyone has any questions I might be able to answer, post them up and I'll do my best!

I haven't strapped any cables down and don't want to until I've finished tinkering! If anyone else had asked I'd have said no, but seeing as you were the one that linked me to the case I can't refuse you!

there are magnetic filters on the bottom of the case covering the 180mm intake fans and the psu intake fan, also all the removable drive bay covers have filters on the inside were you can mount a further 4 120mm fans.

OP, I've been looking at this case for a while - are the coloured strips kind of a champagne(sp?) colour or golden?

as Stulid said, the strips are champagne coloured and, personally, I think look nicer and more understated in the flesh than pictures show. However, the strips appear to just be clipped into the plastic they're attached to so should be easy enough to pop off, respray, then reinstall if you fancy a different colour. I can see myself painting them blue or red one day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apem

Is there air fiters on the intakes including the bays and the psu?

Again, as others have said you have filters on the bottom covering the intakes and PSU, and on the front where each front panel bezel is actually a shaped plastic front attached to a 5.25" filter and frame. This means you can have it with the plastic in place (as I have) or remove the plastic and just leave the frames and air filters instead. If you use either of the fan placements immediately behind the front panel, or the ones behind the drive bays then you need to do the latter or it won't get any airflow.
hardwaresecrets had a good picture showing what I mean: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/fulli...hp?image=34974

The front filters are easily removable by simply taking off the side panel and unclipping the front drive covers. The bottom filters are even easier as each is attached under the chassis by magnets and have a tab to make gripping them to take them off easier. There are also plastic guides under the chassis so you can only put them back on in the right place. One of the reviews I saw said their filters fell off all the time and lasted that as a reason not to buy the case. My experience has been the opposite - the filters haven't moved unless I actually put any pressure on them, then they come off easily, but they've been rock solid as soon as placed into position and I honestly can't see them ever becoming loose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ewanb75

Nice build, how do you find it with all the drives behind the mobo.?

Installation wise, absolutely fine and the build looks so much neater without them and their resulting cables in the case. If you're spreading your drives between the front slots and those behind the motherboard you might be best off checking your power connectors will fit (mine are on only two separate lines so if I wanted to use all the rear panel ones and some of the front they wouldn't reach them all and I'd have to use an adapter on a molex). I haven't checked temperatures yet but mine may well be a worse case scenario as you can see from the pictures my GPU power cables are currently blocking the airflow from the fan up the back of the motherboard. I'll have a check on the two WD HDD's temperatures when I get back from work tonight and post them up. Anyone know a good HDD stress test, or will just copying lots of files between the two do?

is there any hard drive cooling with them behind the motherboard like that

One of the two lower fans (the front one) is offset so it sends some of the cooling behind the motherboard to where the hard drives are. Silverstone do recommend that if you have lots of hard drives back there you install a fan on the right hand sidepanel.

I made a few minor changes yesterday (added a white cathode on the front, tidied some cabling off the fan at the back, changed a WD500 to a Hitachi 1TB) and I've just checked the temperatures of my two mechanical hard drives:

Hmmm... just checked hard drive temperatures after a long evening of gaming. The WD500 has hit 47C maximum and the Hitachi hit 42C maximum. While I'm sure they'd be fine running at this kind of temperature, I think I'm going to have to get a quiet 120mm fan to go on the sidepanel behind the motherboard just for peace of mind.

On the plus side, I think adding the Akasa twin white cathode into the case really shows off the inside just as I'd hoped:

It's not actually as bright as the second picture makes out. The first picture is the more realistic. As you can see, it also shows off the dust on the side window but that's more noticable in pictures than in reality. I know opinions vary but I really like the look of the inside of the case and I wanted to be able to see it properly - hence the lighting! My case, my rules!

Little update on a few things, I bought a couple of 120mm fans to put on the side behind the motherboard to cool the hard drives - an Antec Tri-Cool and a Yates Loon:

Yates Loon - had to plug this straight into the power (haven't got a fan controller) and although nice and quiet outside the case, caused vibration when in place on the sidepanel. Stupidly I hadn't thought to buy any anti-vibration stuff - d'oh!

Antec Tri-Cool - set to low or even medium this didn't move the same volume of air at all as the Yates, but high is just too loud. It also doesn't produce any vibration noise on low though, so this is the one that's in place.

My HDD temperatures are now not going higher than 35C with the Antec in place. I am planning on grabbing some anti-vibration stuff when I next order something, so my long-term plan is to put the Yates in place and see if I can keep them in the 30C-33C range.

I've also replaced the faulty rear 180mm AP fan with another (the one that came with the case switched off when set to High). Both fans now work properly on both low and high, and the new fan seems a little quieter than the old one on low but this might be my imagination. Both are set to Low all the time but now I might switch it to High mid-game and see if it makes any noticeable difference.

Also, I tried the front mic and headphone sockets last night for the first time, and I've got to say they're pretty stiff to insert into. The headphone went in OK, but the mic required a fair bit of pressure and didn't seem to go down far enough to engage first time. I am sure this will ease with a little bit of use but it doesn't feel great straight out of the box.

Overall, after a week of playing with it I am absolutely sure I made the right choice for me. I can completely understand people not liking the look (I personally do) but it really is the best thought out and built case I've ever used or seen. Based on this one, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Silverstone cases to anyone.

Finally, wanted to say thank you to everyone for the kind comments about the build. They're all really appreciated - thanks!

ordered one of these myself, been a little worried, it should arrive tomorrow, can i ask, can you fit a DVI -> VGA adaper in the back of the video card? (im talking about the short silver ones provided with sapphire video cards) ive been worrying about this ever since i hit order!